I’m delighted to be supporting Brook Cottage Books in spotlighting the romance Once and Future Wife by David Burnett. Once and Future wife is available in e-book and paperback from Amazon UK and Amazon US.

To celebrate this spotlight, you also have the chance to win an Amazon e-gift voucher for $20 or equivalent at the bottom of this blog post.

Once and Future Wife

Jennie Bateman has again fallen in love with Thomas, her former husband. However, Tasha, one of his children, is determined to destroy their relationship. Jennie had done that herself a number of years earlier. In the midst of a manic episode, she had deserted Thomas and their two daughters, choosing, instead, a life of shameless debauchery.

Perhaps she was shocked when Thomas filed for a divorce. Perhaps it was the influence of a preacher who took an interest in her. Perhaps she simply cycled back toward normal. Whatever the cause, years later, when she again made contact with her family, she was a different person. Even so, they wanted nothing to do with her.

But time moves on. Circumstances change.

Thomas’s second wife has died, leaving him a single parent with four adult daughters and a new-born. In Jennie’s eyes, he is the same good-looking, kind, loving person she had fallen for when they were in college.

In Once and Future Wife we follow Jennie as she goes a second round with her demons, hoping to find a way to stop them from destroying the possibility of a second marriage and the love and happiness that finally seem to be within her reach.

About David Burnett

David lives near Charleston, South Carolina, with his wife and Bonnie, his blue-eyed cat. He enjoys traveling, photography, baking bread, and the Carolina beaches.

David has traveled widely in the United States and the United Kingdom. During one trip to Scotland, he visited Crathes Castle, the ancestral home of the Burnett family near Aberdeen.

David’s photographic subjects have been as varied as prehistoric ruins on the islands of Scotland, star trails, sea gulls, and a Native American powwow. He went to school for longer than he wants to admit and has graduate degrees in psychology and education. He was formerly director of research for our state’s department of education.

You will find David on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and on his Blog. David also has a website and you will find his books on his Amazon Author Page.

Click here for your chance to win an Amazon e-gift voucher for $20 or equivalent.

I’m delighted to be supporting Brook Cottage Books in spotlighting Erica Laine’s historical novel Isabella of Angoulême which was published by Silverwood Books on 30th October 2015. Isabella of Angoulême is available for purchase on Amazon UK and Amazon US.

Not only can you read and extract from Isabella of Angoulême, but Erica Laine has written a guest blog all about why she writes historical fiction and at the bottom of this blog post you have the opportunity to enter to win one of two e-copies of the book.

Isabella of Angoulême

Set in the thirteenth century, the kingdoms of England and France are struggling over territory as the powerful Angevins threaten the French king. In regions far from Paris local fiefdoms disregard all authority.

The Tangled Queen is the story of the little known and very young Isabella of Angoulême who was abducted by King John in 1200. She became his second wife and queen consort, aged 12. He was the most reviled king in English history and his lust for her led to the loss of Normandy and the destruction of the Plantagenet Empire, which then brought about the Magna Carta.

Isabella came of age in England, but was denied her place in court. Her story is full of thwarted ambition, passion, pride and cruelty. She longed for power of her own and returned to France after the death of John to live a life of treachery and intrigue…

Read an extract from Isabella of Angoulême

Excerpt from Isabella of Angoulême: The Tangled Queen Part 1.

Isabella smiled and yawned – it was time these chattering girls left. She dismissed them, haughty and impatient. Away they sped, some calling back to Isabella, jokes and remarks full of innuendo for her future. She frowned; this was not the way to treat a future queen.

‘Agnes, help prepare me for bed.’

Agnes closed the chamber door, unlacing the back of Isabella’s dress, folding the glorious red and gold silk into the large chest. Tomorrow Isabella would wear the blue gown, the splendid blue and silver fabric showing wealth and also loyalty. If red and gold had shown the power and wealth of the Taillefers, then the blue would mark their obedience and fealty.

Early the next morning Agnes was busy preparing a scented bath. Precious rose oil, drop by drop, turned the hot water cloudy. And then she was busy mixing the rosemary wash for Isabella’s hair. She would wear her hair loose today, and her small gold guirland.

Isabella woke up and saw Agnes looking at her, long and thoughtful, ready to make her stir, but she was already throwing back the covers and standing and stretching. Agnes nodded and together they moved to the bath, and Isabella slipped into the milky, perfumed water and rubbed the rosemary wash into her hair. She felt the water running down her back and shivered. Then she was being briskly dried by Agnes, who was determined to treat Isabella to the most thorough of preparations.

Her mother Alice entered the room and the three of them unfolded the wedding gown and dressed Isabella. Her chemise was soft and light, the dress heavy and cumbersome. Arranged within it, held within it as if caged, her face pale but proud, she moved to the window and looked down onto a courtyard full of people, horses, carts and wagons. A procession was moving through the crowd, with a stately canon and an even more stately bishop in the centre. The clergy were intent on their walk to the cathedral. Isabella clutched Agnes in a sudden fear. Then she rested her head on the window and took a deep breath. It was her wedding day.

Why I Write Historical Fiction

A Guest Post by Erica Laine

As a young reader I fell in love with the books of Henry Treece, Geoffrey Trease and especially Rosemary Sutcliffe. They were far more satisfying than the straightforward school stories or the Enid Blyton books that were on offer in the late 40s and 1950s.

They were closer to fantasy but had so much truth in them too. And I learnt a great deal without really noticing. Information was just absorbed. Other books about the Arthurian legends were exciting and so were Tales from Troy. Later I moved onto adult historical fiction and enjoyed all that those books brought with them, people who lived lives that were full of danger and excitement but these were not fantasy, these people had lived and there was a thread running back to them.

When I moved to Aquitaine in France in 1997 and began to study the history of France and Europe through our local history society I discovered the extraordinary complex history of England and France that had shaped where I now lived. I am surrounded by medieval castles and forts, watchtowers, Roman roads and remnants of their towns and artefacts. There are towns like Bordeaux and la Rochelle that the English and French fought over time and time again. And even further back places where the Visigoths invaded, Poiters where the Moors were driven back by Charles Martel, abbeys and churches founded in the early 9^th century, burial sites for the Franks who had come south as the Romans retreated;  all to be visited and wondered over.

When I came across Isabella of Angoulême and her story I was struck by how little she appeared in our history textbooks although she has been a character in some historical novels and indeed Jean Plaidy wrote her as a main protagonist in The Battle of the Queens.

But I wanted to thoroughly explore her life and times and try to give her a context that would be full of detail: manners, social conditions, clothes, cooking and food, transport, politics, power play. The list was endless and so was the research. And I love the research! I can spend far too long tracking down something I need to know, for example why were so many almonds being ordered and bought for the kitchens? Because they were used to make almond milk, as cows’ milk didn’t keep or was not available. I may not use that but now I know it helps me to keep my head in the 13th century.

I was cross that so many books said that John and Isabella were married in Bordeaux when he was known to be in Angoulême on the 23 August and they were married on the 24^th. In 1200 you couldn’t possibly ride to Bordeaux in time to be married there the next day. So looking at distances covered on horseback was another piece of sleuthing that made me happy about a date and place I was going to use.

But it’s not all historical fact, the conversations people have, the encounters that are made, the journeys that can only be in the mind’s eye, the clothes and the jewellery worn, this weaving together of what we know and what we can only imagine, the creation of a world that is real but not dry facts, this is something I enjoy more and more as I continue to delve into and discover the past.

And it all lives for me, as the books that I read more than 50 years ago lived for me. Living history, that’s what it’s all about.

About Erica Laine

I was born in 1943 in Southampton and originally studied for the theatre.  I moved with my family to Hong Kong in 1977 and worked and lived there for 20 years, writing English language textbooks for Chinese primary schools and managing large educational projects for the British Council.

Since living in S W France I have been very involved with a local history society and have researched many topics, the history of gardens and fashion being favourites.

Isabella of Angoulême began in 2011 at a writing workshop run by Philippa Pride, the Book Doctor.  The story of this young queen was fascinating and although she appears as a character in some other historical novels I wanted to concentrate on her entire life and her importance to the English and the French and the role she played in the politics of power. Part Two is being written now and my head is more or less permanently in the thirteenth century.

You’ll find Erica on Facebook and you can follow her on Twitter. Isabella of Angoulême has a dedicated page on Facebook too.

Click here to enter to win one of two e-copies of Isabella of Angoulême.

I’m delighted once again to be supporting Brook Cottage Books in spotlighting the contemporary romance Love on the Nile by Ellie Gray which is published today 15th June by Tirgearr Publishing. Love on the Nile is available on Kindle UK, Kindle US, Smashwords, Kobo and Nook (Barnes and Noble).

To celebrate publication I have an extract for you to read and the opportunity to win an e-copy of Love on the Nile at the bottom of this blog.

Love on the Nile

Natasha embarks upon the holiday of a lifetime with her brother, looking forward to exploring the ancient sites Egypt has to offer. What she hasn’t bargained for is spending her holiday cruising along the Nile with Kyle Richardson, a handsome but moody archaeologist. Despite taking an instant dislike to Kyle, Natasha finds herself increasingly drawn to the man, particularly as his interactions with her brother reveal a gentler, more caring side to his character.

Having lost everyone he has ever loved, Kyle is a loner, believing himself to be cursed. He now spends his life moving around Egypt, ensuring he never lingers anywhere long enough to form meaningful attachments. Despite his better judgement, he finds himself drawn to this feisty young woman, but is afraid of the deeper feelings she stirs in him.

Can his feelings for Natasha convince him that it’s worth taking a risk on love?

An Extract from Love on the Nile

“Natasha, darling!” The rather stout woman levered herself from the chair and swiftly crossed the room to throw her arms around her niece.

Breathing in the familiar perfume and leaning into the protective embrace of her aunt, Natasha’s irritation dissipated as quickly as it had appeared, and she closed her eyes against the sudden and unexpected tears of relief at having finally arrived at their destination. “Oh, Aunt Lucy, it’s so good to see you.” Her voice was muffled against Lucy’s shoulder and she took a deep breath before stepping back and smiling. “It’s been so long. I can’t believe we’re actually here at last.”

“It’s wonderful to see you, Natasha. I’ve missed you both so much.” Lucy lifted a hand to cup her niece’s face before turning to Nicky, hands on her ample hips as she scrutinised him critically.

“Oh, you always were like two peas in a pod. And, Nicky, you have grown into a very handsome young man. You have no idea how happy I am that you came.”

“Hello, Aunty Lucy, how are you?” Nicky briefly returned his aunt’s embrace before securing the baseball cap a little tighter on his head and asking the question foremost in his mind. “Can I have something to eat?”

Lucy shook her head with a smile and glanced at the man, who had so far remained silent throughout. “Kyle, this is my nephew Nicky, and my niece Natasha. I’m pleased to see that at least one thing never changes, and that is Nicky’s appetite.”

She caught Nicky’s arm and led him off to the far side of the room. “Come on, I’ve got some of your favourite biscuits over here in this cupboard.”

Natasha could see Kyle watching her younger brother, his eyes narrowed, and she felt the familiar churning in the pit of her stomach, trying to anticipate at what point he would realise Nicky had learning difficulties. Automatically, she tried to deflect that scrutiny, moving further into the room and feeling a sense of relief as Kyle’s gaze immediately swung towards her.

“Natasha Morgan,” she introduced herself, and held out her hand.

“So I gather.” His face was unsmiling and Natasha was uncomfortably aware of her earlier, rather waspish response to what was probably quite a reasonable conversation he had been having with her aunt. He pushed himself out of the chair to tower above her, his hair shining blue-black in the pale moonlight which streamed through the open window. Tall as she was, Natasha had to tilt her head back to meet his startlingly blue eyes. He was younger than she had initially thought, probably in his mid-thirties — just a few years older than herself.

There was a pause before he replied. “Kyle Richardson.”

He took her hand briefly, offering a firm cool handshake, before returning to his chair, long legs stretched out before him and crossed at the ankles.

“I’m sorry you overheard our conversation; I had no idea you were there.”

His voice was deep and husky, and his gaze once again followed her movements as she sank into the seat Lucy had recently vacated.

She nodded and spread her hands expressively, shrugging her slim shoulders. “I’m sorry if I sounded… irritated. It’s been a really long day and I hadn’t expected Aunt Lucy to arrange a personal guide for us. Please, it’s not a problem, we don’t want… we don’t need a guide, and I’m sure you have better things to do with your time.”

Kyle’s mouth twitched as if in amusement at the inadvertent slip of the tongue, but whatever he was about to say was lost as Lucy and Nicky returned, the latter clutching a packet of chocolate-covered biscuits.

“Oh, you’ve introduced yourselves. Excellent.” Lucy beamed at them, clapping her hands together. “I’m sure we’re all going to have a wonderful time together.”

“I was just explaining that Nicky and I are quite happy to find our own way around Egypt,” Natasha cut in quickly. “There is no need for Mr. Richardson to trouble himself.”

“Nonsense,” cried Lucy, fixing Kyle with a rather piercing gaze. “I’m not letting you wriggle out of this one, Kyle. You owe me rather a lot of favours and I am now calling one of them in. Heavens, man, I haven’t seen you in close to two years, and I happen to know for a fact that you haven’t taken a break for longer than that. It’s high time you did.”

Natasha observed this outburst with some surprise, having hardly ever heard her aunt speak so sharply. She risked a glance towards Kyle and saw that he was still reclined in his chair, arms folded over his chest, and a somewhat amused gleam in his blue eyes. He remained silent, obviously expecting Lucy to continue her reprimand.

About Ellie Gray

Ellie is a contemporary romance author and lives in the beautiful East Riding of Yorkshire with her partner, David, and two children, Joe and Abbie.

Love on the Nile will be her second novel published with the lovely Tirgearr Publishing – her debut novel, Beauty and the Recluse was released in February 2016.

A proud member of the Romantic Novelist Association, Ellie currently works full-time in public services and is studying for an MSc in Public Management, although she hopes one day to be able to write full time.

A few random pieces of information about Ellie:

• Favourite TV shows – The Walking Dead, The X-Files, Nashville, Dr. Who, The Great British Bake-off!
• Favourite Music – I’m an 80’s girl!, country, sixties, Elvis, classical (when I’m writing)
• Favourite Food – Indian, tapas, crisps, cheese
• Favourite Drink – black coffee – copious amounts when I’m writing, Sauvignon blanc when I’m not.

You can find Ellie Gray on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram, Google+ and LinkedIn.  She also has a website.

Click here for your chance to win an e-copy of Love on the Nile.

 

I’m so pleased to be featuring wonderful Katey Lovell on Linda’s Book Bag again today. The Boy and the Bridesmaid will be published by Harper Impulse on Thursday 16^th June, the culmination to the popular Meet Cute series of short stories.  It’s available to preorder now from all major ebook retailers, including Amazon UK and Kobo.

In celebration of the The Boy and the Bridesmaid Katey kindly agreed to write a guest blog for Linda’s Book Bag about her favourite boys. However, she went a step further, imagining she was having a fictional dinner date and you can read what she told me below!

The Boy and the Bridesmaid

A gorgeously romantic short story, part of The Meet Cute series.

There’s nothing as wonderful as a wedding, especially when it’s your sister getting married. But for Maria, who struggles with social anxiety, being a bridesmaid is a struggle as well as an honour and when she finds herself overawed the person by her side is the last person she’d expect to understand…

My Review of The Boy and the Bridesmaid

What an utterly gorgeous short story to complete Katey Lovell’s Meet Cute series. It may only be a few pages long but somehow she manages to encompass the full range of human emotions from joy to grief, with fear and longing in between, in The Boy and the Bridesmaid.

There’s also a really effective and realistic sense of occasion in the depiction of the wedding so that it was almost like attending in person.

I really liked the completeness of the story so that there is a wonderful sense of pleasure in reading. I thought the quality of the writing was fantastic. There was just the right balance of features like similes and description to bring the prose alive and make it a sparkling read.

Smashing stuff!

Fictional Dinner Date!

A Guest Post by Katey Lovell

When Linda suggested I write a guest post about my favourite boys to celebrate the publication of The Boy and the Bridesmaid, I immediately imagined a scenario akin to the TV programme Dinner Date.  In real life I’m happily married, but seeing as this is all make believe, I’m going to very much enjoy being wined and dined by these gorgeous specimens of manhood!

Whenever I’m asked about fictional characters I have a crush on, my thoughts always race straight to Edward Rochester from Jane Eyre.  I know he’s not the nicest of fictional characters, but for some reason I can’t put my finger on I’ve always found him strangely alluring.  When Toby Stephens played him for the BBC adaptation my love for him only grew, because let’s face it – he is rather beautiful to look at, the ultimate in dark and brooding.

However, if Rochester was in a bad mood on our date I’d be particularly crushed and need someone with a softer side to help me feel brighter. For that reason, I’d like to go on a dinner date with the lovely Harri from Georgia Hill’s Say it with Sequins trilogy.  I love Harri because not only is he tall, dark and handsome but he’s also a total sweetheart and best of all he’s WELSH!  We have a shared interest in dance too, so we’d not be short of something to talk about, and maybe he’d be able to show me a few of his moves too. Oo-er!

Which only leaves me with one final choice – I don’t know who to pick!  I’m tempted by Alex from Erin Lawless’ Somewhere Only We Know and also Nick from Holly Smale’s Geek Girl trilogy – nice guys who don’t always get it right but who are doing their best to make the women in their life happy.  However, I’ve decided to plump for Rainbow Rowell’s enigmatic Baz, and if I can be really specific, the version of Baz who appears in Cath’s fanfic sections of Fangirl.  He’s sassy and sexy and smells of bergamot and I’d love to question him about his relationship with fellow Watford pupil Simon Snow.

And this is a bit of a cheat, but if I could also choose one Meet Cute boy to swoon at over a candlelit dinner, I think it’d probably be Marwan from The Boy at the Bookshop.  He loves his family enough to put his own dreams on hold, which melts my heart and of course there’s the geeky book factor too.  He’s one of the nice guys and I’m sure we could while away the hours sharing book recommendations.  And his dad runs a restaurant, so maybe we could get a discount too.

You can find all Katey’s books here.

About Katey Lovell

Katey Lovell is fanatical about words. An avid reader, writer and poet, she once auditioned for Countdown and still tapes the show every night. Getting the conundrum before the contestants is her ultimate thrill.

She loves love and strives to write feel-good romance that’ll make you laugh and cry in equal measure.

Originally from South Wales, Katey now lives in Yorkshire with her husband and their son.

You can follow Katey on Twitter, find her on Facebook and visit her blog.

Today I’m very pleased to be featuring Summertime Blue by John Campbell Rees which was published by The Timeless Press on 12th March 2016. Summertime Blue is available on Amazon UK and Amazon Us and from Waterstones.

As adolescence lasts only 16 weeks in John Campbell Rees’s book, I wondered whether he thought there was a best time in a person’s life and he has provided a fascinating guest post today all about that very subject.

Summertime Blue

The Light Half of the Year has arrived on Arbouron, the Planet Earth in a neighbouring reality. The inhabitants of the Canopy of the great Tree are returning to their homes after their enforced Winter Exile. The members of the Winter Squad, the volunteers who maintain the Canopy during the Dark Half of the Year are returning to their base in the Roots. This year feted as the heroes who saved the Tree.

A new challenge awaits Nevamarsya, the youngest member of the Winter Squad as she travels with her family, friends and colleagues to the Roots for the first time as as Officer and fully grown Tree-Person. The consequences of defeating the alien invader hang heavily on Neva and the other youngsters sent up to the Canopy for training only. Have they been robbed of their one and only chance of being a child by the horrors they have witnessed.

A ghosts from the past threatens the present. The Loan Shark Drwgdynant disappeared twenty years ago, before he could stand trial for his many crimes. Now a body has been discovered and Tabbernant, the oldest member of the Winter Squad, who was responsible for ending Drwgdynant’s reign of terror is accused of his murder. The person who can clear Tabbernant’s name is has been in hiding for the past two decades from the criminal Syndicates. Will Neva and her friends be able to find him in time to save Tabbernant.

The Best Age to Be Alive

A Guest Post from John Campbell Rees

I don’t think I have ever met anyone who enjoyed being a teenager. Eight whole years of spots, raging hormones, horrendous peer pressure, life altering examinations and parents who stopped understanding you on your thirteenth birthday. Wouldn’t it be be great if you could get that all over with in four months?

In my first two novels, that is exactly what happens. The in story explanation is that the inhabitants of the Tree were created to be the soldiers who defended the Tree from all external attacks when it was a Sapling. For a young tree, there are many threats, disease, parasites or inclement weather to name a few, it could not wait for its army to go through a normal life cycle with a sixteen to eighteen year childhood and adolescence, it needed troops quickly, so it made sure its troops matured quickly. The out of story reason is I used to work in a branch library across the road from where two double-decker coaches disgorged their homeward bound passengers at the end of a school day. The library had eight public access PCs, a magnet to the teenagers. At the start of the academic year, in September, I would see the new intake of eleven year olds, in uniforms several sizes too big. It only seemed like four months later, before the Christmas holidays, those same children would be talking about the GCSE examinations they would be taking the following Summer.  Of course four years had passed, but it didn’t feel that way.

Winter Squad covered the four juvenile characters, Nevamarsya, Natalicsya, Pemisegant and Althallant’s telescoped young life, up to the point where they  are about to swap the emptiness of the Winter Canopy for the year round hustle and bustle of the Roots. The four main juvenile characters are enjoying the best part of any tree inhabitant’s life. They are still in the first blush of youth and look it. Their bodies might look fully grown, but they are not fully adult yet. In a year’s time, they will complete their growth cycle when they go through the Biological Adoption process and join one of the twenty eight families. After that, they will have to take their studies and future careers seriously.

In Summertime Blue the four youngsters believe they are in the best age to be alive as I think this is the best time to be alive in the world I have created. They are experiencing  the best of both worlds, a fully developed body, free from the limitations of childhood but still maintaining the juvenile enthusiasm for life only youngsters possess. Given the martial nature of Tree society, where all jobs have a military rank structure, the forty plus days of actual combat experience gives them advantages not available to their contemporaries. They hold the first adult rank of Subaltern, they are allowed to drive, can stay out an extra hour after normal juvenile curfew and could, if they wanted to, get married.

Although, it has to be remembered that barring accidents and wartime fatalities, Tree People know they will die on their forty second birthday. This does not make them fatalistic. It encourages them to enjoy each and every day, before it is too late. So the characters will soon learn that any age is the best age to be alive.

There are other super blog posts about Summertime Blue with these other bloggers:

Since I started blogging I’ve been really neglectful of the books for my U3A Reading Group, but when Elly Griffiths cropped up this month I knew I had to set aside all my ARCs and review copies and read the first in the Ruth Galloway novels, as I’ve read many of the others but not The Crossing Places. The Crossing Places is published by Quercus and is available in e-book and paperback from Amazon UK, Waterstones, WH Smith and all good bookshops. At the time of writing this review the e-book is free on Amazon.

The Crossing Places

Dr Ruth Galloway is called in when a child’s bones are discovered near the site of a pre-historic henge on the north Norfolk salt marshes. Are they the remains of a local girl who disappeared ten years earlier – or are the bones much older?

DCI Harry Nelson refuses to give up the hunt for the missing girl. Since she vanished, someone has been sending him bizarre anonymous notes about ritual sacrifice, quoting Shakespeare and the Bible. He knows that Ruth’s expertise and experience could help him finally to put this case to rest.

But when a second child goes missing, Ruth finds herself in danger from a killer who knows she’s getting ever closer to the truth…

My Review of The Crossing Places

When archaeologist Dr Ruth Galloway is called in to look at some buried bones, little does she realise what a profound effect this will have on her life.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Crossing Places. I’m not sure whether having read later novels in the series enhanced my reading but it was certainly very interesting to read some of the back story that is alluded to later.

The story reminded me a little of a piece of music. It built and built, refrain upon refrain until the final crescendo which is dramatic and heart stopping as Ruth finds herself in considerable peril. Elly Griffiths certainly knows how to construct a plot that entertains and thrills her readers without being sensationalist and unrealistic.

The quality of the prose is so good. It has depth and substance but in a measured and sophisticated way, making it all the more attractive. Elly Griffiths paints such a vivid picture of Norfolk for her setting so that those who know the county accept it as totally authentic and those who don’t can picture it perfectly. Indeed, the Saltmarsh becomes as much a presence in the narrative as any of the characters. The archaeological detail is brilliantly researched and made me want to sign up to another dig myself. I was educated as well as entertained by this read.

I loved the characters. I appreciated that Dr Ruth Galloway isn’t the stereotypical wonder woman heroine of so many stories, but is somewhat socially inept, overweight and lives alone with her cats. I found it very easy to identify with her. Harry Nelson, too, is completely believable even though he is less well defined in this first book. Reading The Crossing Places has made me want to return to the whole series in order to see how the characters develop chronologically.

I envy those coming of the Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths. They are in for a total treat and The Crossing Places exemplifies the best of those novels.

I’d like to add too that all 12 members of the U3A reading group to which I belong universally loved The Crossing Places too.

You’ll find much more about Elly Griffiths on her website, by following her on Twitter and finding her on Facebook. Elly Griffiths also writes under her real name Domenica De Rosa and you can find out more here.

I so loved Carys Bray’s debut novel A Song for Issy Bradley that I am thrilled and delighted to be part of the launch celebrations for Carys’s latest book The Museum of You. The Museum of You is published in hardback and e-book by Hutchinson, an imprint of Penguin Random House, on 16th June 2016 and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and all good bookshops.

Today I have a super guest post from Carys Bray and an extract from the book, after which you can read my review of The Museum of You.

The Museum of You

Clover Quinn was a surprise. She used to imagine she was the good kind, but now she’s not sure. She’d like to ask Dad about it, but growing up in the saddest chapter of someone else’s story is difficult. She tries not to skate on the thin ice of his memories.

Darren has studied his daughter like a seismologist on the lookout for waves and surrounded her with everything she might want – everything he can think of, at least – to be happy.

What Clover wants is answers. This summer, she thinks she can find them in the second bedroom, which is still full of her mother’s belongings. Volume isn’t important, what she is looking for is essence; the undiluted bits: a collection of things that will tell her the full story of her mother, her father and who she is going to be.

But what you find depends on what you’re searching for.

A moving and surprisingly funny novel – The Independent

My Favourite Museums

A Guest Post by Carys Bray

In my new novel The Museum of You, twelve year old Clover Quinn sorts through her mother’s belongings and curates an exhibition in the second bedroom of the house she shares with her Dad, Darren.

As part of The Museum of You blog tour, I’m writing about some of my favourite museums. In recent months it has been frustrating to read of the museum closures which appear to be disproportionately affecting the north of England. Museums are a great place to learn about our heritage; they’re often a testament to the efforts and dedication of working people, the men and women who built and made many of the things we take for granted today.

The Merseyside Maritime Museum.

This museum is right on the iconic Liverpool waterfront. Standing in the foyer is a bit like standing in an enormous, old tunnel. The lights hang from steel wires and the floor is cobbled in places. When the glass doors open and people step in and out of the building, you can hear seagulls squawking. Outside, tall ships and tugs float in the Albert and Canning Docks, on either side of the museum. You’re right in the middle of the story from the moment you arrive.

I visited the museum several times when I was writing The Museum of You. On one occasion I met with a curator who talked to me about her job. I learned that curators used to be called keepers, an apposite description for Clover’s Dad, Darren, who has kept all sorts of things in the second bedroom of their house.

My favourite objects are the models of ships. There used to be more but 60 of them were destroyed in the Blitz in 1941. The ships remind me of doll’s houses; I wish they could be opened up, allowing visitors to see their insides.

A particularly interesting and sad part of the exhibition deals with the fate of the Titanic. Below is a collection of things that were retrieved from the bottom of the sea. I stood and looked at these objects for a while. It’s amazing to think of their history: the optimism with which they were placed aboard the ship and their long, silent wait under water before they ended up in a display case in Liverpool.

The Albert dock area was revitalised when the Maritime Museum opened. The Tate Liverpool and the International Slavery Museum are right there, too. These repositories of history and art catalogue human achievements and abuses. They give us a sense of our place in the world, and help us to understand our human story. And that’s what Clover Quinn is looking for as she curates her museum; a way of learning more about her place in the world and the story of her birth.

The Museum of You – Excerpt

When she got home from the museum Dad was kneeling in the hall. He’d unscrewed the radiator and his thumb was pressed over an unfastened pipe as water gushed around it. The books and clothes and newspapers that used to line the hall had been arranged in small piles on the stairs. Beside him, on the damp carpet, was a metal scraper he’d been using to scuff the paper off the wall.

‘Just in time!’ he said. ‘Fetch a bowl. A small one, so it’ll fit.’

She fetched two and spent the next fifteen minutes running back and forth to the kitchen emptying one bowl as the other filled, Dad calling, ‘Faster! Faster! Keep it up, Speedy Gonzalez!’ His trousers were soaked and his knuckles grazed, but he wasn’t bothered. ‘Occupational hazard,’ he said, as if it wasn’t his day off and plumbing and stripping walls was his actual job.

Once the pipe had emptied he stood up and hopped about for a bit while the feeling came back into his feet. ‘I helped Colin out with something this morning,’ he said. ‘The people whose house we were at had this dado rail thing – it sounds posh, but it’s just a bit of wood, really – right about here.’ He brushed his hand against the wall beside his hip. ‘Underneath it they had stripy wallpaper, but above it they had a different, plain kind. It was dead nice and I thought, we could do that.’

Dad found a scraper for her. The paint came off in flakes, followed by tufts of the thick, textured wallpaper. Underneath, was a layer of soft, brown, backing-paper which Dad sprayed with water from a squirty bottle. When the water had soaked in, they made long scrapes down the wall, top to bottom, leaving the backing paper flopped over the skirting boards like ribbons of skin. It felt like they were undressing the house.

The bare walls weren’t smooth. They were gritty, crumbly in places. As they worked, a dusty smell wafted out of them. It took more than an hour to get from the front door to the wall beside the bottom stair. That’s where Dad uncovered the heart. It was about as big as Clover’s hand, etched on the wall in black, permanent marker, in Dad’s handwriting: Darren + Becky 4ever.

‘I’d forgotten,’ he murmured. And then he pulled his everything face. The face he pulls when Uncle Jim is drunk. The face he pulls when they go shopping in March and the person at the till tries to be helpful by reminding them about Mother’s Day. The face which reminds her that a lot of the time his expression is like a plate of leftovers.

She didn’t say anything, and although she wanted to, she didn’t trace the heart with her fingertips. Instead, she went up to the bathroom and sat on the boxed, pre-lit Christmas tree dad bought in the January sales. When you grow up in the saddest chapter of someone else’s story you’re forever skating on the thin ice of their memories. That’s not to say it’s always sad – there are happy things, too. When she was a baby Dad had a tattoo of her name drawn on his arm in curly, blue writing, and underneath he had a green, four-leaf clover. She has such a brilliant name, chosen by her mother because it has the word LOVE in the middle. That’s not the sort of thing you go around telling people, but it is something you can remember if you need a little boost; an instant access, happiness top-up card – it even works when Luke Barton calls her Margey-rine. Clover thought of her name and counted to 300.

When she went downstairs Dad had recovered his empty face and she couldn’t help asking a question, just a small one.

‘Is there any more writing under the paper?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘She didn’t do a heart as well?’

‘Help me with this, will you?’

They pulled the soggy ribbons of paper away from the skirting and put them in a bin bag. The house smelled different afterwards. As if some old sadness had leaked out of the walls.

My Review of The Museum of You

Clover is on the cusp between childhood and adulthood. Her father Darren does his best to make her happy as he balances life without Clover’s dead mother Becky, supporting his depressive brother in law Jim, working as a bus driver and visiting his father. When Clover decides to stage a museum exhibition in honour of her mother in the unused and junk ridden spare room, the results uncover a world of emotion and revelations she hasn’t bargained for.

I was apprehensive that second novel syndrome might affect Carys Bray after I so enjoyed her debut A Song for Issy Bradley, my review of which you can read here. However, The Museum of You is equally beautiful and compelling. Against a totally recognizable background of popular culture through music and television, Carys Bray weaves a tapestry of love, life and memory that would make any reader question the validity of their own memories and identity. I frequently found my throat tightening with tears and emotion as I read.

The juxtaposition of Darren’s story next to Clover’s gradually uncovers the truth of the past so that the reader experiences their lives deeply and affectingly. I was moved so often as Carys Bray has the ability to suggest a nuance that resonates on many, many levels with so many readers. There is a simplicity and a beauty to the writing that is just wonderful to read.

The characterisation is perfect. Mrs. Mackerel acts as light relief with her humorous malapropisms and Kelly seems realistic and warm, but the true stars are Darren and Clover. Their relationship reminded me of a kind of kaleidoscope, colourful and shifting and occasionally settling into perfection before life intervened and unsettled the patterns again.

I loved the metaphor for Clover’s childhood in the allotment as the summer moves into autumn and Clover grows up. I also adored the exploration of grief, of love and of the very essence of what makes us human that Carys Bray seems to convey so effortlessly.

I think readers who are looking for a contemporary writer with flair, talent and the ability to touch the soul will love Carys Bray. She is fast becoming one of my favourite writers. I cannot recommend The Museum of You highly enough.

Carys Bray

You can follow Carys on Twitter and visit her website. You’ll also find her on Facebook. There’s lots more about and from Carys with these other bloggers too:

 

I’m utterly thrilled to announce that Linda’s Book Bag was voted as the Best Review Blog in the 2nd Annual Bloggers Bash Awards yesterday.

The Annual Bloggers Bash Awards were created by Sacha Black last year. Sacha is an inspirational blogger and you can sign up to her newsletter here.

I would have loved to be at the award event but at the time it was on I was sitting in a field awaiting Bryan Ferry in concert. There are so many fantastic bloggers out there that I couldn’t believe it when I heard I had been given the Best Review Blog Award.

I’d like to thank all those who voted for me and say that this really does mean a lot to me and I appreciate every single one of those votes. When I write a review I really try to make it personal, honest and genuine and this award has really touched me.

The full list of nominees and winners can be found on Sacha’s blog here, but the other award winners were:

Funniest blogger: Lucy at Blonde Write More

Best Dressed Blogger: Becca at Becca’s Books 

Best Newcomer: Noelle at Crime Book Junkie

Most Inspirational Blogger: Shelley at Shelley Wilson Author

Hidden Gem: Alix at Delightful Book Reviews

Services to Bloggers: Sarah at By The Letter Book Reviews

Most Informative Original Content: Aquileana at La Audacia de Aquiles

Best Pal: Anne at Being Anne (I may just have nominated Anne in this category!)

Best Overall Blog: Suzie at Suzie Speaks

Why not check out their blogs too?

And THANK YOU again if you voted for me.

My grateful thanks to Alainna Hadjigeorgiou at Quercus Books for a copy of Love, or Nearest Offer by Adele Geras in return for an honest review. Love, or Nearest Offer was published by Quercus in hardback on 2nd June 2016 and is available for purchase on Amazon, from W H Smith, Waterstones, the publisher and all good bookshops.

Love, or Nearest Offer

On paper, Iris Atkins is an estate agent, but she’s not just good at finding suitable houses for her clients. In fact, she has a gift: Iris is able to see into their lives and understand exactly what is missing and what they need – and not just in bricks-and-mortar terms either.

Of course, concentrating so much on fixing other people’s problems doesn’t leave much time for examining your own. Over the course of one whirlwind year Iris discovers that while she may know what’s best for everyone else, she doesn’t necessarily know what’s best for herself – and what she finds out could make her happier than she’d ever dreamed of.

My Review of Love, or Nearest Offer

Iris is leaving her cheating boyfriend to concentrate on finding the right house for the right client through her estate agent job. However, looking after other people’s interests doesn’t mean she can best look after her own.

I haven’t read anything by Adele Geras before even though she is a prolific author but reading Love, or Nearest Offer felt as if I’d been reading her all my life. Her style felt familiar and comforting. Frequently I found myself nodding in agreement as she described family dynamics and characters. I wondered if we might be related!

There’s quite a few characters and initially I found this quite disjointed until the glue that is Iris began to pull all the threads together and they had all been introduced fully. Once they had I found I cared about them and wanted their outcomes to be successful. It is Iris who is most vividly depicted and successful for me.

The plot has been carefully constructed so that there is a satisfying conclusion to all the stories presented and those who’ve been through the death of a partner or have moved house will find so many echoes of their own lives.

Love, or Nearest Offer is an easy summer read that will have you wanting to look through people’s windows and go house hunting. Adele Geras uses description so effectively that it is easy to picture her settings in in the mind’s eye. I especially liked the portrayal of Aiden’s house.

I found Love, or Nearest Offer a well written and entertaining story that would be smashing to read on holiday.

About Adele Geras

Adèle Geras is the author of many acclaimed stories for children as well as five adult novels, including: Facing the Light, Hester’s Story, Made in Heaven and A Hidden Life (all available in ebook from Quercus), Cover Your Eyes (available in print from Quercus) and Out of the Dark, a special short story for the literary charity Quick Reads. Adèle lives near Cambridge and is the mother of the thriller writer Sophie Hannah.

You can follow Adele Geras on Twitter or visit her website.

I’m delighted to be part of the launch celebrations of Annabel Abbs’ historical novel, The Joyce Girl which is published by Impress Books on June 16th 2016. The first year of profits from The Joyce Girl go to Young Minds in memory of Luccia Joyce who spent most of her life interred in an asylum. The Joyce Girl is available for order here.

Today I have a wonderful guest post from Annabel Abbs followed by my review of this remarkable book.

The Joyce Girl

The Joyce Girl by Annabel Abbs, is a novel based on the life of James Joyce’s daughter, Lucia, at the time of her affair with Samuel Beckett and her psychological decline.

The Joyce Girl won the Impress Prize for New Writers in September 2015. The shortlist was judged by a panel of experts in the publishing industry. The novel was also longlisted for the Bath Novel Award and the Caledonia Novel Award.

1928

Avant-garde Paris is buzzing with the latest ideas in art, music, literature and dance. Lucia, the talented and ambitious daughter of James Joyce, is making her name as a dancer, training with some of the world’s most gifted performers. When a young Samuel Beckett comes to work for her father, she’s captivated by his quiet intensity and falls passionately in love. Persuaded she has clairvoyant powers, Lucia believes her destiny is to marry Beckett. But when her beloved brother is enticed away, the hidden threads of the Joyce’s lives begin to unravel, destroying Lucia’s dreams and foiling her attempts to escape the shadow of her genius father.

1934

Her life in tatters, Lucia is sent by her father to pioneering psychoanalyst, Doctor Jung. For years she has kept quiet. But now she decides to speak.

Based on the true story of Lucia, The Joyce Girl is a beautiful story of thwarted ambition and the nurturing but ultimately destructive love of a father.

 

WHY I SPONSOR A CREATIVE WRITING MA EVEN THOUGH I DON’T HAVE ONE…

 A Guest Post by Annabel Abbs

The Joyce Girl tells the mostly-true story of James Joyce’s only daughter, Lucia, a dancer in 1920s Paris. When I began writing it, I really didn’t have a clue what I was doing.  I hadn’t set out to be a writer.  I’d never been on a course or read a how-to-write book. All I knew was that this extraordinary woman had been wiped from history and she deserved better.  Sadly, the only biography of her (To Dance in the Wake by Carol Schloss, Bloomsbury 2004), was full of black holes:  all Lucia Joyce’s letters, her medical records, anything she’d ever written, had been destroyed, leaving very little for her biographer to work with. I realised that if I wanted to find out what really happened to Lucia, I would have to do vast amounts of research and then fill in the gaps with fiction.  I had always read heavily, my first degree was in English Literature and my father’s a poet, so I wasn’t daunted by the task ahead of me. But I had no idea how much blood, sweat and tears would be required to actually structure and write a novel.

As I wrestled with my embryonic novel I thought about doing a writing course. In my darkest hours I googled MAs, Curtis Brown, Faber and Arvon courses (amongst others) but I knew that, with elderly parents and in-laws and four demanding children, it would be hard to find the time.  If I’d chosen a less research-intensive novel, perhaps I could have squeezed it in.  But I hadn’t. And I was not prepared to ditch Lucia.  If I’m honest, there was another reason too.  I was terrified of being surrounded by bright young things with portfolios of award-winning stories and plenty of time to do writing exercises.  I had neither. Half the time I was working out my plot as I simultaneously grappled with a hoover or else I was practising Irish dialect on my seven-year old while on the school run!  I decided to go it entirely alone.

But it was hard.  And it was often lonely.  Oh how I yearned for a supportive group of writing buddies and a helpful tutor full of top tips.  And later, as I struggled to approach agents (without a contact to my name and no idea how the industry worked), I wished I’d been to something that explained it all.  The more debuts I read, the more I noticed that nearly all of them had an MA in creative writing.  And this made me angry.  My novel involved researching the lives of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, thought to be two of the greatest writers of the last century – neither had MAs in creative writing.  Neither had been on any writing courses whatsoever.  As I read around my subject, I re-read Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield and other writers of the period – none of whom had attended a writing course.  Surely it could still be done?

Just as I finished my novel – exhausted after almost three years of researching, endless night-time re-writes and the juggling that goes with being a mother – my old university (UEA) approached me and invited me to have dinner with John Boyne.  Who could refuse that? I’d been wondering how anyone with a job and kids could ever write a novel (at least I didn’t have a full-time job to fit in) and when I arrived at the dinner the UEA Creative Writing course leader gave me a quick lesson in the economics (pitiful) of being an author and the challenges (many) faced by his MA students.  I decided that, although I’d taken the lonely road, perhaps I could help one person avoid it.  I knew, from my own experience, that if I’d also had to hold down a job I could never have written my novel.  I previously worked in business and so was lucky enough not to have money worries or financial constraints. If I had, would I have been able to resurrect Lucia Joyce?  No.  Of course not.

UEA’s aim is to have every place fully funded.  But for now, there are sponsorships for Irish writers and overseas writers and young writers. My bursary, however, is for budding writers of 40+ who couldn’t otherwise afford to do an MA.  I urge you to apply at http://bit.ly/1rUsNs2.

My Review of The Joyce Girl

I have a confession. Initially the novel didn’t appeal to me terribly and I only really accepted The Joyce Girl for review because I wanted to support mental health issues. With the first year’s profits from royalties going to Young Minds I thought it might be a ‘worthy’ read. That just goes to show what an idiot I am! The Joyce Girl is an utterly amazing book.

Firstly I have to acknowledge the outstanding and meticulous research that has gone in to making The Joyce Girl a completely fascinating read. I have learnt so much – not just about Luccia Joyce whom I have to admit I was mostly unaware of, but also about James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Carl Jung. This quality of research means the characters are vibrant and convincing, leaping from the page in 3D magnificence. But it’s not just the main characters that are so life-like. The wide supporting cast has equally engaging personalities who are presented in all their human frailties. This is such skilful writing. I kept hastening back to the reading in case the characters got up to something I might miss whilst I was away.

The next aspect that I was bowled over by was the sense of time and place that Annabel Abbs conveys so brilliantly. I found the prose mesmerising and evocative so that I was transported to Paris especially. There’s a real sense of an era. It’s so difficult to define the way The Joyce Girl is written but I found it hypnotic and beautiful.

As well as the narrative, all elements of the book are fascinating, even the Afterword, where some of the aspects mentioned in passing are elucidated, and returning to the quotations at the beginning after reading the story gave them a harrowing significance they didn’t have when I started. I thought the title too was inspired. Luccia is completely manipulated by her family as if she is some kind of possession and the use of the definite article exemplifies that. She is THE Joyce girl, not Luccia in her own right, but an item owned and used by others – even those supposedly trying to help her.

But what touched me the most was the presentation of those with mental health problems and their treatment by others. I felt an intense sadness several times during the reading and I wonder whether we have moved on as far as we should have done since Luccia was incarcerated. I also felt Luccia’s rage and fury with her through the first person storytelling. The she-beast of madness is also such a well-created metaphor, conveying the rage and impotence felt.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re interested in history. It doesn’t matter whether you’re interested in literature. The Joyce Girl is a story that invades your soul and stays there. In the time since I read The Joyce Girl I have found it impossible to forget. It haunts my thoughts and I think it isn’t too dramatic to say I think it has had a profound effect on my life. The Joyce Girl is, quite simply, stunning.

About Annabel Abbs

Annabel Abbs grew up in Bristol, Wales and Sussex, before stud­ying English Literature at the University of East Anglia. Her debut novel, The Joyce Girl, won the 2015 Impress Prize and was longlisted for the 2015 Bath Novel Award and the 2015 Caledonia Novel Award. Her short stories have been long and shortlisted for various awards. She is now completing her second novel, based on the life of Frieda von Richthofen, wife and muse to D.H. Lawrence.

Before she began writing she spent 15 years running a marketing consultancy where her clients included Reuters, Sony and the FT. She lives in London and Sussex with her husband and four chil­dren.

You can follow Annabel on Twitter or follow The Joyce Girl account. You’ll find Annabel on her website too.

For more on The Joyce Girl and Annabel Abbs see these other bloggers: